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Juken New Zealand has begun a formal consultation process with employees regarding a proposal to close its Northland Mill after failing to find a buyer. The company is to make a final decision on the Northland Mill’s fate by 16 July. Source: Timberbiz Workers First Northland members are shocked and disappointed following the announcement that the mill has failed to find a buyer and is proposed for closure. “We’re disappointed that no buyer has been found for Northland Mill but there is still a window for central Government to step up and push for a solution. Now is the time for a localised solution to save our manufacturing industry and our skilled woodworkers,” Workers First Marcus Coverdale said. The Northland Mill employs around 60 people, with 40 Workers First members who have redundancy provisions and may be able to access redeployment or other options. The potential closure of Northland Mill would be the seventh major wood processing site lost under the current National-NZ First-ACT Government. The company says the proposal reflects challenging market conditions, including falling demand in key markets, rising costs and insufficient work to keep the mill operating sustainably. JNL has made an extensive effort to identify a buyer or alternative pathway that would allow the site to continue operating, but this has not resulted in a viable option at this time. Triboard isn’t impacted by the proposal, and the process to explore a potential sale of that site as a going concern is continuing. According to Workers First the Triboard Mill appears to have found a buyer, or at least, was not proposed for closure. “In terms of sustainability, between the two mills, the full log is used. The top of a log is refined for the tri-board product, and the middle for veneers and mulch. Without a buyer found for the Northland Mill, we’ll be taking the top of the log for tri-board and sending the other raw two-thirds overseas without any value added,” said Mr Coverdale. No final decisions have been made. The company says it is committed to a thorough consultation process and is seeking feedback from employees and union representatives before determining next steps. We recognise the impact this will have on employees and their families and are providing access to support services throughout the process. Juken New Zealand owns 30,000 hectares of sustainably managed and certified plantation forests, providing ongoing employment to over 200 forestry workers in Tairawhiti and 100 in Wairarapa. The company has three working mills in Kaitaia and Wairarapa making wood products for local and export markets, with about 450 manufacturing employees combined. Owned by WoodOne Ltd, which established Juken New Zealand in 1990 and has since invested more than $NZ720 million into its forest and processing operations in NZ.

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Australia must decide what it wants from its timber supply, according to Forestry Australia. The organisation believes that ending native forest harvesting at home does not reduce the demand for timber; it simply shifts that demand elsewhere, including to suppliers the country cannot always vouch for. Source: Timberbiz Forestry Australia believes that when Victoria ended native timber harvesting in 2024, six years ahead of its previously scheduled 2030 end date, the demand for hardwood did not stop. Building supply chains looked interstate and overseas to make up the shortfall, with native hardwood once cut in Victoria now being sourced from Tasmania. Forestry Australia President Dr Michelle Freeman said the consequences were predictable. “When Victoria brought native forestry to an early close, the timber used in our floors, windows, furniture and joinery didn’t stop being needed, it just had to come from somewhere else, interstate or overseas,” she said. “We can either grow it here; in forests we manage to some of the highest standards in the world or import it from places where we have far less certainty about how it was produced.” Dr Freeman raised the issue in an interview on 3AW’s Mornings with Tom Elliott:  “Stopping timber harvesting in one area doesn’t magically make demand for that timber go away. Australians want and need timber products, and they should,” Dr Freeman said. Forestry Australia welcomed the ABC Four Corners program Timber Turmoil for highlighting a critically important issue: that ending local, regulated native forest harvesting in one area has significant flow-on effects to other states, to private land and, critically, to vulnerable forests overseas, which Australia becomes increasingly reliant on to meet ongoing demand. Native forest harvesting in Australia is renewable, regulated and certified. It occurs within a framework of legislation, codes of practice, operational controls, monitoring, independent auditing and internationally recognised forest certification frameworks. The alternative to locally grown timber is rarely no timber at all, but a switch to materials with a heavier environmental footprint, or to imports. “If we’re not sourcing timber from our own backyard, we have to get it from elsewhere or substitute it with other products that are almost always non-renewable, like steel, concrete or plastic,” Dr Freeman said. According to Dr Freeman, harvesting and conservation are not competing goals. A well-managed native forest supports biodiversity; stores carbon and protects water catchments while remaining resilient to bushfire and continuing to supply timber. Sustaining all those values is becoming harder as forests come under growing pressure from severe bushfires, invasive species, pests, disease and a changing climate, which is exactly why active, professional management matters. On the integrity of local supply, Dr Freeman said Australian operations were subject to strong oversight. “Harvesting in Australia is highly regulated and independently certified,” she said, noting the high level of scrutiny on operations, “particularly from environmental groups. They really can’t be getting away with doing anything untoward.” The greater risk lies in winding back well-managed local supply and leaning harder on imports that are difficult to trace, too often from forests run to standards far weaker than Australia’s. Dr Freeman said Australia already ran a timber trade deficit of around $2 billion a year, a significant proportion of it drawn from what she called high-risk countries, “those where the sustainability, environmental and social credentials are hard to verify”. She said this included conflict timber from Russia entering Australia via China. “So, Australia really needs to decide what it wants. For me personally, I would much rather we sourced our timber needs locally, from our own forests, where we know where it’s come from and we can verify it.”  

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Australian Sustainable Hardwoods Pty Ltd (ASH) is aware of a recent program containing misleading, factually incorrect and damaging claims about ASH. We are deeply disappointed and we are actively working through our legal options. Source: Timberbiz The conclusion of the story was determined before filming began. The program showed heavy bias and ignored facts that did not fit their narrative, including clear, documented evidence supplied to them that contradicted the claims they chose to air. ASH’s Managing Director, Vince Hurley, participated in a 2.5-hour interview in which he answered every question and allegation put to him. The editing of that interview was, to put it plainly, dubious. ASH provided access to multiple scientists who specialise in their respective fields. None of this was aired. Instead, the program chose to platform activists with a shared, predetermined view, and in some cases appears to have reworded terminology in ways designed to lead viewers to incorrect conclusions, replacing accurate contractual language with loaded terms like ‘subsidy’ and ‘compensation’. Timber in Australia is sustainably managed and is the ultimate renewable. Let us address the facts directly. The figures stated were wrong ASH did not receive $61 million in 2017. ASH received $3 million, which was applied entirely to union-negotiated, enhanced redundancy entitlements for workers. Our net position from that transaction: zero. ASH received contractual failure to supply penalty payments from VicForests (two years of undersupply) and the Victorian Government (contract withdrawal). This is not compensation. It is not a subsidy. It is a penalty payment that VicForests and the Government was contractually required to make. The total of penalty payments to ASH was $49 million. That payment was taxed so the total amount received by ASH was $34 million. Every cent of that $34 million, and more, was reinvested into replacement stock, additional employment, plant and equipment. The penalty payment ASH received was one third of the revenue that would have been generated if contracted VicForests supply continued. It was significantly less than what it cost ASH to retool operations, develop new products, open new markets and transition to plantation fibre. We have not gained from this. We have absorbed the loss and continued. Importantly, we have made significant gains in developing markets for plantation hardwood. Something few others have been able to do. ASH ceasing operations following the closure of Victoria’s native timber supply would have cost the Victorian taxpayer an additional $30 million instead of maintaining employment for over 200 employees in regional communities and strengthening economic activity. ASH has produced over $500 million in economic activity since 2017 including paying over $100 million in Government taxes and charges. A good result for the Victorian taxpayer. Western Junction Sawmill (WJS) was purchased in 2021 and is not owned by ASH nor the Victorian Government. WJS is now investing in value added manufacturing on the site. On wood fibre ASH does not receive logs from Tasmania. One 100% of timber purchased by ASH from Tasmania is sawn timber from WJS. WJS purchase plantation hardwood and low-grade regrowth sawlogs produced as a byproduct of forest operations. These sawlogs were destined for export and the wood chip market. Instead, they are upgraded into high-value timber products for Australian consumers. A good result for forestry, conservation and the Tasmanian taxpayer. There is no increase in harvesting and there is no basis to the claim of a rapid loss of old trees. ASH has three main fibre sources, and our operations do not survive mainly on feedstock from Tasmanian native forests as implied by the program. The report failed to emphasise the significance of plantation oak, nor mention ASH’s Glacial Oak feedstock entirely. This is not an oversight. It is selective journalism. On terminology and framing The episode framed this story as ‘logging versus environmentalists.’ That framing is both misleading and telling. There is no logging in isolation. Logging is one activity within forestry. Forestry is the science of managing forests for all their values, ecological, social and economic, for the long-term benefit of all Australians. These are not the same thing and conflating them is not journalism. It is a narrative device. On certification and standards Every aspect of ASH’s operations is independently, third-party certified as sustainable and fully compliant with Australian Standards. The opinions of unsustainable practices made by activists in this program carry no such certification and have not been independently verified as factual. They should not have been given equal weight in responsible journalism, let alone greater weight. Regrowth native forestry and/or plantation forestry do not need protecting from logging. The values that exist in the forest are a result of careful forest management. Not in spite of it. Forestry (not logging) manages the long-term sustainability of forest products. On the future of the timber industry Timber is not a ‘zombie industry’ as described in the program. ASH is a business that is unique in Australia. Manufacturing products for which the only alternative is imported timber, often inferior in quality and of dubious environmental origin. Closing domestic forestry does not help the environment. It exports the problem to countries with lower standards and less oversight. ASH has navigated an extraordinarily difficult transition: new fibre, new products, new markets, new manufacturing and new production, all in a short period of time, during a cost-of-living crisis, in a depressed market. We have come through it.

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For more than two decades, Tasmania’s Regional Forest Agreement has delivered stable forest management, a rigorous reserve system, and the long-term investment confidence that sustains thousands of regional jobs. That stability is now under serious threat and the Federal Government’s own words are beginning to reveal why. In a recent interview the Federal Environmental Minister had the opportunity to give the native forest industry certainty about the new environmental reforms however, his response suggested the resource could be further restricted. This appears inconsistent with repeated assurances from the Federal Government that its position on native forestry has not changed and that it will not abandon timber workers. Either the reforms preserve the current operating framework, or they do not. Before we go further, let us be clear about what is at stake. Tasmania’s forestry sector is a fully integrated system. The RFA underpins activity across public and private land, across plantations, manufacturing, and the wood that builds Tasmanian homes. Undermining the RFA doesn’t affect just one part of the industry it undermines the entire sector. A persistent misconception in this debate is that the RFA operates as a loophole that allows forestry to sidestep environmental scrutiny. This is fundamentally wrong, and a Federal Court judge said as much in 2024. The Court confirmed that an RFA provides an alternative mechanism by which the objects of the EPBC Act can be achieved not avoided through an intergovernmental framework that allocates environmental responsibility to the State. The current RFA exemption sunsets on 1 July 2027. What the industry needs is certainty that any future accredited framework will allow the same level of sustainable harvesting as exists today. Without that assurance, businesses cannot plan, invest, or guarantee future timber supply. The Minister has also argued that if Tasmania’s forestry standards are genuinely world-class, the industry should have nothing to fear from new national environmental standards. While superficially reasonable, that argument misses the point. The issue is not whether our practices meet the standards it is that the standards have not yet been defined, and industry doesn’t know whether they will be workable in practice. Growers and processors are being asked to invest, plan and operate without knowing the rules they will be required to meet. Until the new standards are settled, uncertainty will continue to hang over the industry’s future. The TFPA is not seeking special treatment or reduced environmental accountability. We are asking for something straightforward. A clear, public guarantee, backed by a credible transition pathway, that no Tasmanian forest business will be worse off under these reforms. We have engaged in good faith. Now it’s up to the Federal Government to provide the certainty we need.   By Nick Steel, TPFA CEO, as published in The Mercury newspaper in Hobart

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